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Soils are part of the solution when it comes to climate change mitigation

Submitted by Michela on Fri, 07/31/2015 - 09:20

Healthy soils play an important role in climate change mitigation by storing carbon (carbon sequestration) and decreasing global greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.

Climate change represents a serious threat to global food security, not least because of its effects on soils, particularly in the most vulnerable and food-insecure countries that are less resilient to irregular weather phenomenon.

As part of its two pilot projects in Tanzania and Kenya, FAO’s Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) programme selected and promoted the uptake of different practices based on experts and participatory assessments with farmers. Some 9 000 farmers in both countries, 40 percent of whom were women, received training on climate-smart agriculture, resulting in 736 energy-efficient cooking stoves being adopted to reduce deforestation. 79 tree nurseries were created, 417 000 tree seedlings were planted and 6 ha of terraces were established (on 204 farms) to conserve soil and water.